14 DAY TRIAL // Many say it is a blessing being pregnant, that women glow and they become more beautiful than usual, but nobody gives them an efficient remedy for morning sickness... mainly because there still isn't one.
Cochrane researchers analyzed every known treatment for morning sickness and concluded that currently there is none that is safe and effective enough for pregnant women.
Their review included 27 randomized controlled trials, involving 4,041 women, pregnant up to 20 weeks.
The benefits of the different therapies were measured by several scales that are commonly used to estimate the severity of nausea at a time as close as possible to three days after treatment.
The results were a bit disappointing because, for example, in six studies of acupressure and two of acupuncture, there were no major benefits, compared to control groups, but a pleasant surprise came from one study of acustimulation, that did report some improvements over a period of three weeks.
As for ginger, vitamin B6, antihistamines and antiemetic (anti-vomiting) drugs - the antenatal drug Debentox included, they all had a very limited evidence of a positive effect.
For some treatments there were even unpleasant consequences like for antiemetics that caused drowsiness, or for ginger that gave heartburn in some women.
Morning sickness is a term that describes vomiting and feeling nausea in pregnant women, and these symptoms can actually occur at any time of the day, not just in the morning, usually affecting more than half of all women, mostly in the early stages of pregnancy.
Most women do not take any drugs, because they fear that they might harm the baby, so they turn to non-drug treatments which include alternative and complementary therapies.
But apparently, these alternative therapies are proven to be not so efficient after all, so this review was meant to find at least one efficient method of getting rid of morning sickness.
Lead researcher Dr Anne Matthews, of the School of Nursing at Dublin City University in Dublin Ireland, said that “a number of the studies we looked at appeared to show benefits, but in general the results were inconsistent and it was difficult to draw firm conclusions about any one treatment in particular.”
“We were also unable to obtain much information about whether these treatments are actually making a difference to women's quality of life,” she added.
In spite of the fact that there are several treatments available, that might actually work for a small percentage of women, “it is not possible currently to identify with confidence any safe and effective interventions for nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy,” the researchers concluded.
Further and “more rigorous” trials are necessary in order to better interpret the results of the studies, e! Science News reports.